Manuscript · 1954
Margaret Mead’s LSD Memo
A memo from anthropologist Margaret Mead's papers at the Library of Congress, recording her interest in LSD and other psychedelics in the summer of 1954 and her work with Harold Abramson's research team, including Conan Kornetsky and Murray Jarvik.
Reviewed transcript. Transcript of 4 pages, checked against the original. Original spelling and line numbers are kept.
LSD mm September 23,1954
Preliminary LSD memo
crossed out Problems of Consc ousness Princeton 1954
presented Caligor to Problems of Consciousness, Abrahamson interested,
he had asked me how to get candidates for experimentation from low
income groups the year before I suggested Father Divine's angels,
Only other knowledge of the drug was a brief conversation with Arnold Meadow
before he got his dissertation. He said it was a drug which induced a
psychosis. Abrahamson telephoned and proposed collaboration with Caligor.
June 6,1954 Met Ralph Blum, through Cathy, told he had been working on Russian
films, extraordinary speed of communication, he claimed due to LSD. Got interested
in possibility of it's being a speed short cut.
June 8,left for San F. Anthropology and Education conference, presented speed pt.
June 14, stayed with M. Erickson, read Huxley Doors of Perception, very bored with
pts. Talked over drugs and his Cooper speed pt. Betty Alice produced Life article.
June 16, lunch with Booth, casual discussion, he mentioned my earlier refusal to
take Mescal, said I'd said it while we were going somewhere in a taxi, must have
have been early 40's. Then it turned out he HAD taken mescal in experiments in
Germany, and thought he owed much of his insight to it. Began to evelope idea of
who should and who shouldn't take it. Discussed whate evidence he had.
Cocktails with Leo Rosten. HE mentioned he was having an article on HOW IT FEELS TO
BE INSANE presenting it as insight giving to sane doctors who could now experience
waht their patients experienced. I mentioned possibility of uncontrolled use,
Ericksons said people had been writing Huxley.
crossed out
August 16 preseted Toronto paper, mentioning speed and drugs in discussion, and
also mentioned it at lunch with Hargreaves and FPS
Read Edith's paper for CRM book (MM and MW) and became more interested in polarization
between actuality adjustment and phtanasy. a point I'd made to her earlier in working
over some stage of her manuscript.
September 15, first session with Abrahamson, his two young men, Murrey E. Jarvok and
Conan Kornetsky (US PH had been at Lexington working with drugs, interested in pain,
Caligor also went. Had dinner, talked, saw Siamese fighting fish under drugs, heard
a record in which a subject (a chemist working with Abrahamson,) had felt he was a
a "bump on a log". Learned its non-addictive character. Asked if I'd take it,
said not sure. Explored "truth aspects2, and ecided it is not a "truth drug".
September 18, wrote Bali chapter and after rereading all my old stuff on the drama and
arts decided Balinese held to actuality by participation in the theatrical process.
New possibility for LDS - away from mysticism and escape.
Dreams during this week, two new characteristics, objects in
dreams appeared to have a liquid quality, serving in brightness
of surface, which after
Sept 20... Conversation with Richard L. Davis on models for open ended systems, walls
and ceiling "go by each other", Mondrian goes around corners,
Sept. 20 luncheon conversation with RM telling her about Mondrian model and suggesting
possibility of needing to turn a corner( of canvas) or road, if we are to have
built in openedness that is built into the system and not just into the culture,
She then recalled her "turned corners" in report on French, using Levy Straus
RCC after her return from Haiti, 1950(?). Could do no more with point.
Sept.20 second conversation with Richard, more about Mies van der Rohe, ( architect who
did I.I.T. in Chicago, corners have a piece out, giving the flying past each
each other effect) this was mentioned last nigt) and more about renaissance buildin
being a closed system, done on 3 which gives a center as compared with 2-4-8-.
Told him some bits about Aspects of form, Symmetry, etc.
Dreams now included extensions of any object out into space,
using liquidness as a way of pulling the end of table out into
LSD -25, Sept.23,1954 p.2. mm
coming to the conclusion that I would try the drug, especially after
reading Abrahamson's third paper, a case of removing fear of homosex. in
one theapeutic 4 hour session.
September 22. Second LDS session, present as before plus two female subjects,
Schwartz - old subject, and Weltman ( one before 25). and John Eberhardt
as an interested observer. (I had been talking to Jarvik about it. I asked
him). Both given Caligors before, then had dinner, and did Caligor's
again with same O.I. drawing( this was suggested to me by Abrahamson
after Sept.22, I called Caligor, he agreed). Then Caligor got Koretsky to
to a TAT type interrogation on them. (This I havent seen yet) Saw the
drawing before, though Schwartz, potentially sick, paranoid and stiff,
Weltman probably a dancer, or interested in body rythms, and not sick.
No comments from anyone.
During evening both girls around( I had dinner early with Abrahamson, hiw sec.
who in a state of giggles from another drug, her husband and Kornetsky.
Jarvik, the 2 subj cts Caligor and the Polish named chemist had dinner
later. Orig. plan had been one placebo, but changed to be sure enough of
interest, with Eberhardt coming too, so we had one experienced subject,
and one with second increased doe.
Schwartz - giggling uncontrollably and meaningingly, short bursts, no depth,
reported sense of focussing on one person then others would blendinto
a circle, seemed farway(? Jarvik), yes, when in groups had felt this way,
distantiated, not realy listening. Stiffness in face, made gestures of
opening mouth, stretching face oddly. When questioned eyes would slew about.
Reported drugs was going away, was back. Reported no affect to drug, had
it so often. Questioned me about my trip, had been an anthro major, said
difficult to concentrate, but did.
Weltman, gracefuldark little German Jewish girl, neurological secretary in a
studying to be an opera singer with an Italian who feels everything starts
with soul, never mentions body, soul must grow and voice come out. Wants
to BE this, but wonders it its wrong to try to be a dead and gone culture,
feels teacher is right "soul is a little material thing for the voice to
cling to, likes her job but feels that the people given shock aren't really
psychotic, talks to them when acting as assistant and feels contact with
them. Maybe the doctors wouldn't like this. Wants to be a singer, but would
not sing under LST. Is concerned with keeping control, will keep it, brought
up rigid German, her parents now know better, look what happened, she likes
Eastern European Jews. (gestures become more Jewish after excursions away in
talking. Asked about Caligor, no disturbance of precision" I drew well,
I never draw, isn't it a pity - we often confuse ends and means... I get
so interested in other things during the way. (All this in an interview
out in the hall, alone with me, had wanted to get out, felt nauseated( no
fear of vomiting), stiffness in chest, ( she thought what everyone had
boys said not), dryness of throat, stiff neck, misery, fear of laughing,
had laughed a lot before..xxxxx
3 conversations with her, first in group people sitting around, she reported
no distortion of vision, auditory distortion, own voice too loud, people
distant, harmonization of voices not attened to, sense of need for more
control.
LSD -25 Sept.23,1954 p.3. mm
right after
Then second Caligor given, and in this interval I took John in for a chat about
a proposal to Have Francis Hsu work at Rockland, we went on to Talk about Manus,
Weltman came in, wanted to ask me about music, which she had started just
as I went in with John. We went on to a conversation about Manus, what was
their music - I said couldn't realy discuss, but did Boola song, by this time
Schwartz had joined us and when questioned, sang boola song. Group now Weltman,
Schwartz Caligor, Kornetsky (? Jarvok). crossed out Then I said Manus beautiful
in action described a canoe crew, paddle tiller, 3 men to sail, she watched my
my hands. Then asked me to speak some Manus, and when I translated, began to
pick out words, picked I, and speak ( I said Jo pa ku panangau Manus), and
said she pikced them because like Italian and Portuguese), then I did more sentence
and she withdrew from game, so I dn't place any. Then we talked crossed out about
PE, here she was very cautious, withdrew from inuitive guessing. Then asked
by Jarvok, any differences, reported slowness of perception gap between word
image, normally would have seen canoe at once when I talked, I said she had
watched my hands:I then asked what kind of sail, she said oh, like an American
sail( started to sketch in order thre sides American sail O and said very
suddenly - 4x "Four sides". and added " not white, more like colour of your
dress" ( pale brown. Argument with secretary's husband who was now in room,
about sails, all were 4 sided, but later after hall interview, showed she thought
normally of three sides, but returned stubbornly to a non-existent type of
four sided American sail.
Periodically, all through, leaned over with her head on her knees hands over
head- to keep from starting to laugh and control nausea- Said she wanted to go
home - this was just an introspective report. Disliked it very much, preoccupied
with control; Told me in hall that she had drawn waterfront type and a sailor.
(ADD to sequence. luhnch with Felicia Sax and her story of patiency - truck
driver homosex. and his postural and voice identification with his mother when
come out of swimming. FS did it oy oy, breathing, and I could run right on
with the associations - what I did for you, my breast, etc.)
End of session about 11( had begun at 6, and as I was dead tired at five I
gone to LJ's and had two stiff Scotches before dinner, just picked me up.)
Discussed next plan, Caligor's would be blind evaluated, studied, then
back to Abrahamson group, there would be written up.
Home w th Caligor, taxi and coffe at 51st street, he very jubilant over
confirmation of his diagnostic point, differentiating psychsis, thinks the
does not produce psychoses but only exaggerates main tendencies towards
control, disintegration, etc. This agrees with Abrahmson. Caligor interested
in widening horizons, changing therapy so available, changing society,
thinks theory has outstripped practice, any therapy if good is good therapy,
need the level of craftsmanship, espec ally prognosis for therapy by tests,
said our society getting sicker, I argued no, more troubles - broken heart,
relihion, politics, etc being so claffied.
LSD - mm Sept.25,1954
letter to R.Blum yesterday.
Note that I am tending to label any new or good ideas as associated
with the project because I am watching my dreams and my dreams
are being theoretical y fertile at the moment.
Last two days dreams having been playing elusively with closed and
open systems, just snatched, I'd wake and say "that's why its
hard to get rid of the bones. Suddenly realised that the pt about
reincarnation, appearance of ancestors in ccs etc. is that in
the problem of closed and open systems is ofcourse the dead.
Iatmul, if people didn't die the villages would be choked with
faeces. The threat to the open endedness of the Manus system is
the graveyard, and the reason there are always ancestral ghosts
in ccs is the point of extreme transition, standing between old an
new, past and future, then you [have] an overcrowding of ghosts, and or
bones - (Bali is always obsessed by the balance pt, what to do
with the body, and this explains WHY that getting rid of the body
is so crucial, its the break in the closed system - unaccounted
for matter)... Soviet put you in the RED WALL before you break up
the system and it has to kill you - storage pts in the system.
Part of the growth point of Christianity as Protestantism was
breaking the med. closed system of unborn souls, and heaven which
at any moment could have closed comp etely, and in a sense had.
This to be investigated.
Pt about the turn in the road, ( see earlier notes on Sept.20
and 21) is to introduce the sense of an open system into the
very closed system of th French. This can be done in the arts
but less easily in the sciences, because of the personal
uniqueness of each artistic production, each performance etc.
Same function performed by "deurong terang"in Bali
Historical Context
The document presented here--a confidential memorandum by the brilliant cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, dated to September 1954--challenges the conventional chronology of the psychedelic era. Written nine years before Timothy Leary's firing from Harvard and more than a decade before the Summer of Love, this memo captures anthropologist Margaret Mead in the midst of a private, rigorously intellectual negotiation with the concept of expanded consciousness. It documents her preparation for an experimental LSD session with Dr. Harold Abramson, a CIA-funded allergist who became a central node in the U.S. government's covert MKULTRA program.
To understand this document, one must look beyond the counterculture of the 1960s: the hydrogen bomb, the rise of cybernetics, and Mead's urgent quest to understand how cultures--and human minds--change under pressure.
Overview
The intellectual momentum for this memo began in 1953, when Mead returned to the Admiralty Islands (Manus) for the first time since 1928. She was there to study a phenomenon she called "the Noise," a localized, apocalyptic cargo cult that had swept through the islands following World War II. The Manus people had thrown their old possessions into the sea, radically breaking with tradition to embrace a perceived modern utopia.
Mead was fascinated by this "complete destruction of the past," as she called it (opinions differ on how complete this really was, and how well Mead understood the phenomenon -- for an alternative take by one of Mead's former students, see Theodore Schwartz and Michael French Smith, Like Fire: the Paliau Movement and Millenarianism in Melanesia, published by ANU Press in 2021). She saw it not as madness, but as a high-speed evolutionary jump, almost a form of cultural mutation. Throughout 1953 and 1954, as she drafted her book New Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation--Manus, 1928-1953 (published 1956), she began to draw parallels between this rapid cultural shift and the rapid psychological shifts reported by subjects under LSD.
In the concluding sections of New Lives for Old--which she was writing in the same period of time as this memo--Mead explicitly links these two phenomena. She speculated that "drugs, such as mescal or LSD," might serve as tools to induce "conversion experiences": cognitive ruptures that could allow individuals to break free from rigid, outdated patterns of thought, much like the Manus had broken from their ancestors.
The memo is also a product of the "Problems of Consciousness" conferences (1950-1954), funded by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. These conferences, which Mead chaired and Abramson attended, were the one of the crucibles of the Cybernetics movement. The participants were obsessed with "feedback loops" and the distinction between "closed" and "open" systems.
In the memo, Mead uses the LSD experience to visualize these abstract concepts. She references the architecture of Mies van der Rohe and the paintings of Piet Mondrian to describe an "open system"--a structure where the corners are not sealed, allowing for movement and evolution. She contrasts this with the "Red Wall" of Soviet communism, which she views as the ultimate "closed system"--a totalitarian dead-end where information cannot circulate.
Thus, for Mead, LSD was not an escape from reality, but a "speed short cut" (Memo, Line 10) to solving the central problem of the Cold War: How can democratic citizens maintain "open" minds in an era of rigid ideological polarization?
The Abramson Connection
The presence here of Dr. Harold Abramson (misspelled by Mead as "Abrahamson") is of significant historical interest. Abramson was not merely a researcher; he was a cleared contractor for the CIA's MKULTRA project. Abramson's lab at Mount Sinai Hospital and his Cold Spring Harbor facility were sites where the therapeutic promise of LSD was inextricably bound up with the Cold War search for a "truth drug" (referenced on page 1 of the memo) and an applied science of the mind which could contribute to strategic imperatives of the 1950s United States.
Mead's collaboration with Abramson, who she had first met during World War II and who participated with her in the Macy Conference "cybernetics" conferences, demonstrates the degree to which the early psychedelic movement was embedded within the emerging national security state of the early Cold War.
On the other hand, this striking, evocative, and complex document also stands as a testament to a far more hopeful "lost future" of psychedelics. An alternative timeline is visible here wherein it was Margaret Mead and other anthropologists and cybernetics-minded scientists of the 1950s -- and not Timothy Leary and psychologists of the 1960s -- who led the vanguard of a psychedelic era. It captures Margaret Mead at the height of her powers, idiosyncratic, relentlessly curious, and intellectually wide-ranging--but also entering one of the most morally compromising and complex periods of an eventful life.
About this source
- Creator
- Margaret Mead
- Date
- September 23-25, 1954
- Type
- Manuscript
- Held by
- Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Margaret Mead Papers and South Pacific Ethnographic Archives, Box K65, Folder 5.
- Language
- English
- Region
- United States
- Text
- Reviewed transcript. Transcript of 4 pages, checked against the original. Original spelling and line numbers are kept.
- Rights
- Needs rights review before republication.